‘US backing terror networks in Pakistan’

PRESS TV
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Pakistan has accused the US of backing militancy within the country, saying this goes against the spirit of so-called war on terror.

Pakistani the News quoted official sources as saying on Tuesday that strong evidence of American acquiescence to terrorism inside Pakistan was outlined by President Pervez Musharraf, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj in their separate meetings with US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and CIA Deputy Director Stephen R Kappes on July 12 in Rawalpindi.

Pakistani officials with direct knowledge of the meetings said the Americans were not interested in disrupting the Kabul-based fountainhead of terrorism in Baluchistan nor do they want to allocate the marvelous predator resource to neutralize the kingpin of suicide bombings against the Pakistani military establishment now hiding near the Pak-Afghan border.

The top US military commander were also asked why the CIA-run predator did not swing into action when they were provided the exact location of Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of militants and mastermind of almost every suicide operation against the Army and the ISI since June 2006.

One such precise piece of information was made available to the CIA on May 24 when Mehsud drove to a remote South Waziristan mountain post to address the press and returned back to his safe abode. The United States military has the capacity to direct a missile to a precise location at very short notice as it has done close to 20 times in the last few years to hit al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan.

"We wanted to know when our American friends would get interested in tracking down the terrorists responsible for hundreds of suicide bombings in Pakistan and those playing havoc with our natural resources in Baluchistan," an official described the Pakistani mood during the meetings.

Pakistani official have long been intrigued by the presence of highly encrypted communications gear with Mehsud. This communication gear enables him to collect real-time information on Pakistani troops' movement from an unidentified foreign source without being intercepted by Pakistani intelligence, sources said.

Admiral Mullen and the CIA official were in Pakistan on an unannounced visit to show what the US media claimed was evidence of the ISI's ties to the Taliban militants and the alleged involvement of Pakistani agents in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.

A former official with Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Khalid Khawaja accused the US in an exclusive interview with the Press TV that the Americans had planted the bomb in the Indian Embassy in Kabul to widen the rift between Indians and Pakistanis.

The report comes a day after Musharraf's warning against the US conspiracies toward Pakistan.

Pakistani political analysts say that the current "trust deficit" between the Pakistani and US security establishment is serious enough to lead to a collapse.
SOURCE: PRESS TV